Resources

If you want to learn more about Bulgaria, here are some resources we think are good.

Books

Beyond Hitler’s Grasp: the Heroic Rescue of Bulgaria’s Jews

During World War II, hundreds of thousands of Jews were deported from the Balkan states to labor and extermination camps in Germany and Poland. Bulgaria, with a Jewish population of only 50,000, sided with Hitler’s government early on, its king having become convinced that only with German aid could he successfully press his territorial claims to land lost to Greece and Romania. Yet, in the face of constant German demands, Bulgaria’s government refused to deport the nation’s Jewish citizens. Instead, as the Bulgarian-born Israeli politician Michael Bar-Zohar writes in this fine contribution to Holocaust studies, “the Bulgarian Jews became the only Jewish community in the Nazi sphere of influence whose number increased during World War II.”

King’s Ransom

Set during the darkest days of World War II, King’s Ransom tells the heroic story of Tsar Boris III, King of Bulgaria, and his extraordinary efforts to save his country’s Jewish population from Hitler’s concentration camps.

Imprisoned for Christ

An evangelical pastor, Rev. Christo Kulichev became a marked man by the Communist party in Bulgaria for his outspoken faith and preaching. He was arrested, tried, and imprisoned for his disobedience to the Communist regime. This is his story of faith in a time of great personal persecution.

Book2 English-Bulgarian for Beginners

book2 – is available in many languages – is ideal for beginners – has 100 short and easy chapters – corresponds to the European levels A1 and A2 – requires no prior knowledge of grammar – covers the basic vocabulary – uses simple structures to help you learn a language – helps you to speak complete sentences immediately – applies the latest memory research All downloads can be accessed at www.book2.de. The audio files are available free of charge at www.book2.de.

Tradecraft: for the Church on Mission

The Western Church world is abuzz with talk of being missional. Church leaders, conference speakers, and authors are weighing the merits of the attractional church movement of the past few decades, and where they find it lacking, prescribing changes in the way we need to approach our cultures with the Gospel. There has been a consensus shift among many churches, networks, and denominations to become more focused on mission. The result is a renewed interest in reaching the lost in our cities and around the world. The Church, in many places in the Western world, is in fact returning to a biblical missional focus. Yet there is something still to be addressed in the process: the how. For centuries, God has called missionaries to cross cultures with the Gospel, and along the way, they have developed the necessary skill-sets for a cultural translation of the Good News. These skills need to be shared with the rest of the Church in order to help them as well be effective missionaries. Tradecraft for the Church on Mission does exactly that. This book, in essence, pulls back the curtain on tools once accessible only to full-time Christian workers moving overseas, and offers them to anyone anywhere who desires to live missionally.

Listen: How to Make the Most of Your Short-Term Mission Trip

The commission Jesus gave to his disciples still applies to us today, including the short-term mission trips we take. If you’re going on a short-term trip—whether across your city or on the other side of the world, consider how you will be going in terms of the attitude and posture you’ll adopt as you go—as servants, desiring to obey God, etc. But could there be more to how we go?